A tape drive may be used for such purposes as storing backup data for a computer and providing data to the computer in a recovery operation in the event that the computer experiences data corruption, data loss, and so forth. The tape drive typically reads data from/writes data to media that is formed from a strip, or tape, of magnetically sensitive material, which is moved by the tape drive's motor relative to the tape drive's read/write head. In this manner, the read/write head contacts the tape at different positions as the tape moves relative to the head to read data from or write data to these different positions. The tape drive is an example of a sequential access storage device: data is written to/read from the tape in a sequential fashion from the starting position to the end of the tape or until the operation is complete.